How Greg Hunt thinks the hotel quarantine debacle ‘could largely have been avoided’

Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt says if Victoria’s contact tracing had been more effective the hotel quarantine debacle “could largely have been avoided”.

Mr Hunt told 3AW’s Neil Mitchell there have been a handful of comparable outbreaks in NSW, but they haven’t spread widely because of effective contact tracing.

“NSW has had the equivalent of about six hotel quarantine breaches,” he said.

“Victoria and NSW … both had outbreaks. NSW was able to contain theirs.”

Mr Hunt said although Victoria’s contact tracing abilities have improved, there’s more work to be done.

“It has improved, it’s improving, there’s more to go,” he said.

“If you have a highly developed contact tracing system then you can bring us, in a progressive, staged way, out of these curfews and lock downs and the shuttering of businesses more quickly.”

The federal government has offered help bolstering Victoria’s contact tracing capabilities.

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